


Well, if you're sure

by Emma_Lynch



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Forgiveness, Friendship, Hope, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Loss, Love, Plans For The Future, Post TLD AU, Realisation, Redbeard - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-08 04:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14097078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Lynch/pseuds/Emma_Lynch
Summary: AU post TLD. What if, rather than talking through their grief, John leaves Sherlock for that twenty minutes before Molly is due to take over 'minding' his friend? Mary is dead and the pain is palpable; their friendship hangs in the balance and Sherlock is recovering from a self induced drug overload, combined with very real attempt upon his life. In the background, there also lurks a certain foreshadowing of what is to come; a spectre lurking from Sherlock's disjointed childhood, large and nebulous but threatening his very sanity.Much rests upon the small shoulders of Molly Hooper, but she has always been what Sherlock needed, exactly when he needed it, so what will happen now?An alternative version of how things may have unravelled in The Lying Detective.





	1. A Cup of Tea

**Part One**

**1: Cup of Tea**

**5.37 pm**

" _Oh I thought we were just hanging out."_

"Molly will be here in 20 minutes."

"I think I can last 20 minutes without supervision."

"Well if you're sure…"

I hold the cup more tightly, caressing its cheap earthenware as I would hold a talisman, a lifebelt. Purple, raised strokes; primitive and mass produced: a sunburst? A firework? A flower burgeoning forth from a pasty ceramic meadow? However many times previously Mrs Hudson has provided china cups and saucers to present her tannins, I now feel safe with the purple starburst. It's basic; sub-standard, poorly executed and poorly received. I want it because I deserve it. I am fragile yet redundant and _sub-standard._ I hold my breath as I hold the cup and as I receive John's news - and I take it as I took his blows.

His shoulders telegraph a horrendous cocktail of awkward, devastation and pity and I find I am unable to bear it. If John had hesitated one moment more, I would not have been responsible for what came next, but I need not have worried.

He turns, (Grateful? Relieved? Disappointed?) so I grip the cup and I do not know, because all the bravado I ever had has dissipated, like flotsam in an endless ocean.

He turns (not knowing about the missing house keys) and only hesitates once more before his hand grips the newel post. There is pale sunlight emerging from a reluctant sky and consequently dappling his forehead, his chin, the dimple in his cheek with fragile shadows. Even the air is suspended, tremulous and weak with the faintest tang of sweetness (?) and I fantasise about him turning back, shrugging and dropping his bag, making to stay:

"It's still twenty minutes. Put the kettle on."

But he doesn't, and my hand shakes slightly as I raise the cup to my mouth.

The tea is cold.

The drumming of his footfall down those seventeen stairs manages to punch its way around the cavity in my chest and I find I am greedy for air like a landed guppy as I clutch at the mug, leaning forward in my chair.

The door slams shut (he always slammed it, even when the catch had been fixed; force of habit, a human condition I suppose)

And he's gone.

Nineteen minutes to go.

**~x~**

**2\. A Battlefield**

**6.04 pm**

The bloody Tube.

You can't, I suppose, live in London for long without blaming some of your daily inconveniences on the underground, but this time really was … inconvenient. Both Baker Street and Marylebone stations were closed, leaving Edgware Road and a very unreliable bus link to make up the time I had already lost in the lab after a friendly, helpful but ill-timed paternal chat with Mike Stamford. He's worried about me, you see. I am seen as bereaved, and bereaved in a morgue isn't always an entirely tolerable situation. So, Mike worries for me, and I worry for everyone else, which is why I'm fumbling around the uncharted Bermuda Triangle of my bag to find an unfamiliar set of keys as I half walk, half run along Baker Street, skirt clinging to my legs and sweat trickling down my back. Lovely.

The hallway is cool, dim and slightly musty, tiny motes floating around in bright afternoon winter sunlight. It is both familiar and comforting, but I can feel the weight of its silence, lying heavy as the coats on the rack, with the absence of one, showing John has left early. I try so hard to keep the edge of uncertainty from curling around my voice as I shout up the stairs (isn't it polite to give warning? Doesn't everyone do it?):

"Sherlock!"

My voice is weak, and slightly self-conscious.

"Sherlock, I'm here! The trains are rubbish today, so … sorry."

A good friend (as well as a good traveller) always plans their journey well, to recompense for any imagined delays or diversions. A good traveller (and friend) checks Google for station closures and potential roadworks and designs their journey accordingly. A good person does not stare awkwardly at the clock on the wall behind their head of department when he is offering words of advice and condolence because their friend is … _gone._

I hear no answer (which isn't entirely unexpected) as I trudge up the familiar stairs and wonder about trudging through the daily battlefield that comes after a loss too great to bear.

But I wish that John had stayed, and my heart quickens as I see the sitting room door ajar and hear no violin, no footsteps, no telly, nothing. Pushing it slowly, the light from large windows floods out into my darkened hallway, silhouetting a tall, dressing gowned figure holding a teapot, and I step gratefully into the room and Sherlock's smile.

"I'm late!"

"Nonsense, you're just in time, for tea."

"Lovely, shall I…?"

"Sit down Molly, one station closure is bad enough, but two borders on the intolerable."

And I slump gratefully into John's chair and offer a little prayer for normalcy.

Unfortunately however, although I do see, I sometimes do not observe, and the difference is clear.

**~x~**


	2. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Everyone can master a grief but he that has it."
> 
> ~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

**3\. Loss**

**5.42 pm**

I decide to put the cup down before the panic surges to a level I cannot predict the outcome of, its protection ruined, redundant, gone.

I lean forward, closing my eyes against the sudden yet familiar nausea rolling across me, breaking sweat from every pore without announcement or prognostication (rude). I am still, so still, since the delicacy of my current internal gyroscope remains shamefully unpredictable at present. The price I pay, I suppose, for my recent melodramatic indescreditions. I am assured these moments will decrease into nothingness in time, but a schedule has not been assigned and I, who do not deserve the assurances of the usual convalescent, find some comfort in my punishment.

I deserve it, and more.

As the sickening disorientation decreases and the sudden rush of heat dissipates as though it had never been, the sweetness returns, less delicate, with notes I find I recognise this time.

"Hibiscus." I say, to the fading afternoon sunlight. "With undercurrents of neroli and…" I close my eyes again for focus. "Black peppercorn, for a bitter finish."

_Clair de la lune._

Of course. Too much sweetness simply wouldn't have done, would it? I open my eyes into the empty room, and suddenly, it is full of her and I can scarcely bear it, so I stand abruptly, almost staggering from the exertion and my repellent weakness of body. One, two, three steps, and I'm into the kitchen; four, and the expertly disguised fake tile lies in the palm of my hand; five and the box is open, syringe untouched by any agency but my own…

_Six._

I stop, staring down at the sweetest poison, slightly dizzy, slightly disappointed in the inept sweep of friends, family and people who _care_ , and the ticking of the clock cutting through, syncopating incongruously with my yammering heart.

Thirteen more minutes.

I only need three.

**~x~**

**4\. An Obvious Fact**

**6.07pm**

I sit in John's chair (a little out of alignment, but housekeeping was never Sherlock's forte) and I contemplate as he pours the tea (hand only slightly shaking, so good progress there) and I see a Sherlock Holmes who exists beyond the arrogant ( _black, two sugars_ ), the cruel ( _Christmas_ ), the fearfully heroic ( _I think I'm going to die_ ), the judgemental ( _I lack the practical experience_ ) and I see him without any of the armour he felt he needed over the past seven years and a breath hitches in my throat as I see him, entirely unprotected.

"Milk?"

He gestures bleakly towards the jug, cuff loosened, smile clearly improvised and casual hospitality becoming a distant memory.

I nod and embrace the involuntary panic, the lurch of fear and anticipation, since I can't quite reconcile to the semblance of calm proffered up. Jesus, did I not dissect people's physicality on a daily basis? Did my professional vivisection not come to yield more than a passing nod to the science of … noticing stuff?

The desk. Not always tidy, but the bright scattering of notepaper across its surface seemed wrong, almost impertinent. I look away, wondering if he is watching me as I sip, but he seems distracted by the rug rucked up beneath the table, toe-ing it ineffectively as he watches the traffic rumbling by below, oblivious to us and our little lives behind the brick and glass. There was nothing written on any of the papers, just a sudden disarray, like a flash flood or an unexpected shower of rain, but my heart thumps a little more, fuelled by inexplicable adrenalin.

I decide to stand, putting down my cup and making to busy myself in the chaos of the kitchen. Sherlock has picked up his violin, apparently unperturbed by the need for conversation and social niceties, which was strangely comforting just then.

"Goodness."

Involuntarily, the word escapes my mouth before I could check it.

Dishes absent, tea towels dry and neatly folded on the rail, sink wiped down and spotless and a disaffecting absence of stains, smell and suspicious substances. In fact, the only item out of place was a random kitchen tile, lying across the bench near the toaster, orphaned from its origins somewhere else in the kitchen. I run the water, wondering how I could deflect the weight of my curiosity; something told me he should not see it.

"Would you like a biscuit Sherlock?"

But any answer was moot, carried away on a slightly discordant parry of notes as he tested the strings, which gave me a moment to turn off the tap as I retrieved his phone, placed dangerously close to the edge of the sink. Please be aware I am no snooper of people's inboxes since I have seen the damage caused by such betrayals of trust, but my anxious fingers fumbled my grip, causing the screen to light up, displaying a picture. No crime scene - no stomach-churning close-ups of charred remains, bloodied body parts or obscure ciphers - but a perfect, smiling, golden-haired innocent, as yet unaware of the chasm yawning across her childhood:

Rosie.

Hating myself, and with furtive glances to the living room, I swipe image after image of John's daughter; laughing at a bemused cat, curled sleeping across her father's chest, heartbreakingly cradled by her mother. Frozen in time, yet lost forever. I sigh, close my eyes for a moment and set my shoulders before walking towards the fragile notes now emerging with a semblance of order from Sherlock's violin.

"Sherlock," I said, strong, decisive. "Sherlock, where is the list?"

**~x~**

**5\. Confession**

**6.20 pm**

She knows.

Of course she does. I left enough clues to seduce even Anderson, but am not honest enough to admit how many of them were consciously done. The tile, the stationery ( _this is my note_ ), the cuff unfastened, recently rolled back? Perhaps it was the chair, moved out of my line of sight, because I can't be reminded of John's loss. I had already lost him physically from Baker Street, but to lose his friendship can only be construed as unbearable, and I am clearly not in the habit of 'bearing' things am I? Not with my recent lifestyle choices. Was it entirely 'for a case'? Why don't you tell me, Mary? You are everywhere, seeing everything, knowing everything.

She is staring at me, holding out her hand, holding out my phone, and I realise I don't see Mary now, only Molly Hooper, whose mouth is set, but whose eyes are kind.

"You've taken up sewing...no, no … knitting. You are finding it troublesome, but are sticking with it. You like the feel of wool between your fingers, the idea of something growing out of nothing."

I recall Molly's nervous chatter from around a million years ago, but she remains silent, letting the nervous chatter be mine.

"There's a new heater in the doctor's lounge at Bart's. It isn't as good as the old one - drying. It dries your skin. You might need to use more moisturiser."

She stands, fingers curled around the phone, illuminating the image of Rosamund and I feel a prickle in my throat and a breathless hitch, but I plough on (it's what people expect of me. Isn't it Mary?)

"There's someone new; an admirer who wishes to know more about you…"

"Sherlock…"

 _Danger danger_ , my kidneys hurt, my skins is raw - on fire - but I find I can't shut up.

"He waits for you at lunch time, but you've changed your habits to av-"

"Stop it." Calm, deathly. She won't be slapping me today. "Where is the list? What have you taken?"

Then, she really looks at me, eyes widening.

"Oh god, you haven't written one have you? You thought about it - " gesturing wildly to the notepaper - " but this is it, isn't it? You really mean it don't you? You haven't written a list because you want to end it. You want to die."

She whispers the words, barely able to form them, but it is the single tear that wells up within her left eye, trembles at the edge of her lashes then spills over, rolling slowly down that has me undone.

"Molly, no!" I grasp her arm, clattering the phone to the ground, galvanised by that solitary trickle of hopelessness.

"Please, Molly! I didn't take it! I _didn't_ \- I _couldn't_!" I stride across to the cavity, ripping out the box, showing the hypodermic, desperate to prove; ashamed of what it means to someone else - to her.

We stare across the table at each other, both breathing heavily, suspended above a precipice. I speak first:

"I don't want to die," I say, words spreading out like lava, slow but irreversible.

A moment, a heartbeat.

"But I'm just not sure how to live."


	3. Drinking with friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If you don't drink, how will your friends know you love them at 2 am?"
> 
> ~ anon

**Part Two**

**1\. Tristful**

The physiology of grief is utterly explicable and therefore all the more comforting to know. Activity is increased in the cerebellum, posterior brainstem, posterior temporoparietal and occipital brain regions. All of that is going on as an activity in the anterior brainstem, thalamus, striatum, temporal cortex, insula and dorsal, and the ventral anterior cingulate/prefrontal cortex decreases - pointing to physical and chemical relationships between sadness, grief and depression. As a doctor, Molly Hooper also knows this, but instead of clinical assessment, chooses to indulge my affectations in the form of delicate wrangling and lengthy clattering in my kitchen. Truthfully, the thought of any more tea brings a fresh wave of nausea (of course, that could be withdrawal, as Wiggins shouldn't always be trusted with dosages and estimations thereof) and the return of the tremor.

"Molly, please - " I am already regretting my recent outpourings as drawers/fridges and cupboards are rifled through in the search for solace to replace my seven percent solution. Good luck with that, Dr. Hooper. I open my mouth again (banished to a chair and advised to stay in it) but before I can continue, she emerges, flushed and triumphant and carrying aloft a tray populated by two mugs and an aroma infinitely more acidic and fruit-laden than any tea ever brewed.

"Chenin blanc of dubious vintage and indeterminate age," she narrates, stepping over the rug gingerly and laying down her spoils between us.

"Wine, Molly? Would my other minders approve?"

"You chose your poison, I'm choosing mine," she counters, sitting with a small sigh in John's chair (her long shift, sleepless nights, lonely contemplation, private grief - my shame increases, but I bat it away as is less than useful), offering a mug to me. Her eyes are dark, tired and without reproach. I take it. I sip it. She does the same. I imagine our facial expressions to be indicative of each others.

"Awful."

"Disgusting."

And we smile, and drink a little more.

**~x~**

**2\. Mummy Material**

Mary Watson once came to visit me at my little flat, which I found both unusual and (truth be told) a little flattering. Mary was the Head Girl, top cheerleader, WI leading light type of woman (on the surface anyway) which always drew me like a moth to the flame. So predictable, but I couldn't suppress a flutter of excitement as I opened the door.

"She's inconsolable again." Rosamund was unceremoniously passed to me without pause as Mary breezed in, arms laden not only with baby but frangipani tartlets and what looked a little like elderflower cordial.

"It's Chardonnay Molly, so don't judge me. I had to get out of the house and this was the second port of call."

Rosie had quietened immediately and was currently gazing up at me with embarrassingly compliant devotion.

"Um… what was your first?"

"The Morgue," she returned, twisting the cap with a neck-breaking crack.

The frangipani was delicious. I bit into its sharp almond buttery-ness as I stared down at the golden-haired baby lying across my sofa, swaddled by cushions and spare jumpers (my flat can be chilly as none of the windows fit, particularly the bathroom). Little fists curled into pink rolls and small chest rising with a heart the size of that fist, beating at 190 beats per minute, keeping her pink and bright and living.

"Isn't she fab?"

I jump slightly as the homecoming queen appears at my shoulder, passing a chilled glass into my hand, ignoring polite refusal with a mere inclination of her brow.

"She certainly is," I return earnestly, looking down as a sleep-frazzled frown briefly clouded her perfect little forehead.

"You should have one," decides Mary, slumping gratefully back into my bucket chair and putting her feet onto my coffee table with an unapologetic _clump_.

"You are the most nurturing person I've ever met, plus you'd be used to working night shift, and excellent at delivering the Calpol." Bright, cerulean blue eyes look up into mine as if it was the most sensible idea in the whole wide world.

"Ah, I don't…"

"John was absolutely fine with you being our surrogate if things hadn't worked out this way."

"Mary, you are such a liar."

She grinned, caught out and loving it.

"Naturally, but I stand by my original deduction. You, Molly Hooper, are _mummy material_."

I dip my head, taking a sip and feeling heat spread across my cheeks. In spite of my recent promotion to Head of Department after Mike's move to Swansea, and the over abundance of credit card offers and grovelling mortgage leaflets through my door indicating my certain adult-ness, Mary always had the habit of making me blush like an eight year old who had never left her mum's bungalow to play out with the big kids.

"Babies are the ultimate sacrifice." I sigh. "A baby is born with the need to be loved, and it never outgrows it."

I turn towards Mary, now sprawled across my less than abundant chair and see her inherent confidence, but recognise how little it dilutes the kindness in her eyes.

"You've got the love, Molly Hooper," she say, smiling, letting the low sun glinting through grubby London window panes coat her hair with light and throw flecks across the planes of her face.

"And you've got the inclination."

I put down my glass, smiling and start picking up the detritus of objects Mary seemed to have orbiting around her being.

"I'm a bit traditional about babies," I murmur, picking up a plush elephant teething toy and feeling almost embarrassed, yet suspended in an unreality where everything is possible and well-chosen words seem beyond my reckoning.

Mary lifts the glass of wine, downing it and smiling across my small and slightly faded living room.

"Tradition is great, but sometimes you've just got to go with … _your gut_."

Rosamund stirs, twists towards the cushions and I stand, (slightly self consciously), awaiting her next move.

"Sherlock has so much love, it's embarrassing," smiles Mary Watson, offering up her glass and imbuing my heart with a strange kind of solidarity.

"No."

"Yes."

My cheeks glow and I lift the bottle to pour.

"Molly Hooper," says Mary, ninety three days away from her death, "that man needs to hold you, to kiss you and to father your children."

So, I offer her a cup of tea.

* * *

 **A/N** : _Tristful_ \- French origins; meaning _sad_.


	4. Cake and Dolphins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think falling in love is always a surprise, right?
> 
> —Josh Dallas
> 
> Sherlock realises he wants to talk to Molly.   
> About everything.

**3\. Translation**

I miss Mary Watson with an actual, physical pain in my heart.

You must understand how new I am to love, and how John Watson wove his dubious grasp about my psyche with his care for milk at breakfast and Pad Thai at supper. He was recently from Afghanistan and raw with the devastation of war, yet alive with the appetite for destruction that it brings. I saw him within an instant of taking his phone and will love him until the day that I die. But his wife…

Mary Morstan was the translation between John and I. She shouldered our occasional awkwardness and translated it into action before we understood ourselves. It would have been so very easy to determine a lifetime with John, but I remained realistic about his desires and allowed Mary to bewitch me a little, like she had bewitched my friend. Currently, I considered, she would be appalled at the both of us and impatient with our lack of action. If Mary was here, John would have stayed and we would have spoken to each other, even if it had required a gun to the head. Would he be able to recalibrate our friendship? Would our uneasy truce last beyond polite enquiries and guarded commentary?

Mary, it turns out, is also as irritating in death as she was in life.

"Always, Sherlock, _always."_

I stand in my bedroom as Molly Hooper watches dolphins regretting their friendliness towards humanity in a wildlife programme on my television in my sitting room.

"I'm sorry, but the lack of context to your comment renders it nothing more than a rather sentimental non sequitur."

"Play nice. I'm dead."

"Your rationale will only take you so far in a judicious discussion."

"Why? I'll be dead forever."

I am unable to allow this, so I return:

"Not while I live."

There is a slight pause while I realise I have been corralled rather neatly and Mary nods towards my bedroom door.

"Then you'd better get on with that, hadn't you?"

**~x~**

"Their brains are so developed Sherlock."

Molly and I are sharing grapes (as opposed to their more liquacious and troublesome cousin) left by a client (I suppose I have been in hospital for a while) whilst we discuss the documentary and await John's return. All sense of drama has lessened and we share a sofa in a carapace of normality which actually cheers me beyond understanding. We have eaten rice and some kind of fish which she concocted from the contents of my cupboards and a small carrier bag (a true experimental scientist) and I feel steady, I feel quiet, I feel calm.

"I have been a little troublesome recently," I begin carefully, ignoring the supposed genius of aquatic mammals and rummaging for an undamaged fruit amongst the leftovers. "I have caused… _consternation_ ... amongst…" I pause.

"Your friends." She returns swiftly, as sharp, white teeth bite through fragile skin.

"Yes."

I have friends. I have people who care for me. I can behave badly and they will still care. I lie back amongst the cushions to consider.

( _always, always_ )

I can make mistakes. I can be cruel, dismissive, rude and arrogant, but people who know me will still… _care._

"Time, Sherlock." Molly leaves the company of delphinidae, looking me straight in the eye and I find myself shocked at the silent stealth of her beauty. "It will take a little time. John is proud, stubborn and emotional. He needs things to settle down, to find a pathway through his guilt that doesn't involve punching you in the face... and he will, Sherlock."

She truly means it and I fight down the urge to take her hand, now lying in her lap.

Molly glances away into the darkened corners of this Baker Street sitting room, where the light from the television cannot reach, then she sighs, closes her eyes and allows the flickering images to cast shadows across her face.

"He will, because he knows you are a ... a good man. He will, because he loves you."

I do not deserve such words, but accept them with the ragged thirst of a wretched survivor.

**~x~**

Data. Hard facts. Information. Contemplation. Memories.

_Memories._

Learning from mistakes is something new, and the curse of having an expansive memory means I have too much available data to learn from. Terrible childhood events, so long repressed, have somehow paralysed my mind.

Yet here I sit, avoiding ennui and eating grapes with Molly Hooper; close enough to feel the heat from her body, but unable to deduce one single thing about her thoughts. I panic slightly, fumbling in an uncharacteristic cul-de-sac of information in an attempt to know what she is thinking. I breathe slower, calming and corralling what I see, what I hear, what I already know.

She is bright, quick, capable and aeons beyond my initial appalling judgements of her. She lives alone through choice and manages her expertise enough to gain professional kudos and recent promotion. She is self-depreciatory without dishonesty, talent without brag, and imbued with a glowing, quiet humour which enchants, intrigues and irritates almost simultaneously. I look at her, reflected in the kitchen glass and follow the lines and planes and perfect profile of her face and wonder why she sits here with me when she should be outside, beyond the bricks and glass, and owning the world around her. And then I understand; it is because she _wants to be._

Suddenly turning her head, startling me, her dark eyes flash with something and I feel naked, transparent, open.

"Whatever it is you're thinking, Sherlock, you can tell me, and I will listen."

Without judgement.

Mary isn't speaking to me anymore but I know what to say and who I should say it to.

"I used to have a dog," I say, words carried across a sigh and into the great unknown. "And one day, he never came back."

**4\. Hands**

Minutes or hours have passed but I have little idea of which, or how many. Time has become as redundant as a ticking clock to a blind man. Sherlock's words were initially slow, halting, awkward and catching in his throat as if he had been imprisoned on a lonely island without cause or need of speech, but, his hands do move as momentum allows, unravelling the tale as though weaving a skein of invisible silk, like Penelope at her loom. Long, slender fingers splay out wide and reel me in; but fists curl in frustration as true memory eludes a brain unused to poor recollections.

"More than pictures in my head, it is a _feeling_ , an overwhelming panic that defines the loss-" Sherlock's hands are momentarily stilled, a crinkle between his brows and unaccustomed puzzlement clouding pale eyes.

"The loss of Redbeard?" Leaning forward, I curl my own fingers inward as the urge to touch soft stubble across his cheek is overwhelming.

He looks up at me: _sadness._

"The loss of hope."

Something had changed in his home, his family dynamic, that day and it had never been put right. A growing, clouding fear, even horror, had poisoned nights and days and leached away true memories and accuracies. He lifts pale fingers (trembling slightly) to overcrowded temples, as if urging thoughts to return and explain themselves.

"He never came back. We never found him, and things were never the same again. Mycroft went away to University, we moved away after the fire... or something like that. I just can't see it clearly. Clarity, logic, firm deductions and eventual outcomes. These have been my adult aspirations to rid myself of things I cannot explain."

"Everyone determines to make some sense of the world, Sherlock. It's what I try and do in my job every day, but sometimes you can't see what shaped you." The clock ticks out four beats before his eyes find mine, sunken and shadowed but still his own. "So, if you couldn't make sense of your early life, you decided you'd make sense of other people's mysteries… and a pretty good job you made of it too."

My smile is pretty lame, but he sees my efforts and rewards them with a smile of his own.

"Thank you Molly Hooper," he says, hand uncurling and reaching out for mine. "For being my friend, in a world full of loss ( _warm, dry, strong fingers hook around my own and hold them still_ ), thank you."

"There _is_ hope Sherlock." It is my voice now dry and crackling. "There is _always_ hope."

And we sit, suspended in a moment, an in-breath, a tock-less tick.

Then -

"Sherlock! Molly!"

The squeal of a yielding lock and dull thunk-thunk of an opening door; bringing the outside in and breaking the spell.

"Bloody Tube again!" John Watson is stomping his feet and uttering curses between the loquacious flapping of a saturated umbrella. "AND, it's pissing it down - for a change!"

Sherlock looks wide-eyed momentarily then relaxes into the trust we have and smiles at me, and it almost disarms me completely, as a totally unbidden lump forms suddenly in my throat and threatens to spill out of my eyes. He sees it all in a nanosecond (of course he does) and grips my hand tighter;

(whispering)

"If you don't cry, I'll tell you a secret, an entirely accurate one."

"Mmm."

(steps upon the stair)

I swallow and he looks so pleased, I will my brimming eyes to dry up. Sherlock then leans in and my hindbrain does nothing to evade him, but he doesn't kiss me ( _for God's sake, Hooper!)_ but brings his mouth so close to my ear, I feel the heat of his face, his beard across my cheek.

"Today," he whispers, a tiny smile curling about the words as I breath him in, "is my birthday."

**~x~**

**Epilogue (and cake):**

John and Molly are fussing about cabs downstairs. I know it will be late, since Mrs Pinkerton has been sleeping with cab company owner Mr Pinkerton's business partner and it was only a matter of time before the silk scarf in the rear window was recognised (I had warned him to be less cavalier about his dalliances. He usually was an extremely reliable and well-priced cabbie) and impatient fares were now least of his worries. How amusingly well-timed, then, was the carnally-charged utterance of my text alert.

_Let's have dinner._

_Irene, I am currently recovering from a near-death experience at the hands of a most unpleasant serial murderer._

_There's always something, darling boy. Where would you like to go?_

_I'm not hungry._

_But terribly thin._

_You can't see me._

_Can't I? I rather think that's up to you._

_It is, which is why I'm going out for cake._

_Well, well, well. It's about time._

_For what?_

_For cake, my darling. Happy birthday._

_Thank you Irene._

_My pleasure. And I think you are hungry, Sherlock._

_Goodbye, Irene._

_Goodbye Sherlock._

And as I gallop down the stairs towards a long, sleek car that bears no resemblance to Pinkerton's and every resemblance to Mycroft Holmes, I stop suddenly and peer inside to where my friends are waiting-

\- and I find that she is right.

I am _ravenous._

**The End**

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you so much for reading. :) I love you all xxx
> 
> (and did I mention? - this is Pt. 1. See you soon, lovelies.)
> 
> PS: Irene knows. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! I do hope everyone is fine and coping in the current Sherlock-wilderness that encompasses us all. This first chapter is quite short, but longer ones will follow.  
> Thank you so much for reading, and please share any comments (as I love to read them!)
> 
> E. x


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